Materials Selection – Supply Chain
Sometimes, products need to have their ingredients revised for a variety of reasons:
• Make them “greener” - lower carbon footprint or make them biodegradable
• Change another product characteristic
• An existing ingredient becomes expensive or scarce
• An existing ingredient becomes unacceptable by the market or specific customers
• A major flaw is discovered
• Supplies become unreliable or delayed
• A new geography needs to be supplied and existing suppliers are not fit logistically
This calls for a new materials selection process that involves R&D, supply chain, manufacturing and others.
The product still needs to maintain certain existing attributes, more or less, but may also need to acquire new attributes. This may also involve new supplier selection processes involving pricing, geographical and logistical considerations among other factors.
In essence, the materials selection problem is similar to finding a new formulation and perhaps even a new (or revised) manufacturing process.
The value proposition of MaterialsZone for new materials selection
• Cut the number of experiments and iterations to optimize the new formulation performance through design of experiments. This results in reduced R&D costs and faster time to market.
• Focus on parameters (variables) that really matter.
• Rapid accumulation of knowledge and predictability.
• Easy application of AI/ML visualizations, insights and predictions.
• One platform, all the data, all the insights, all the stakeholders (R&D, scale-up, manufacturing QC, supply chain alternatives selection).
MaterialsZone solution for new materials selection
Many types of products require supply chain revisions - polymers, building materials, composites, etc. New formulation development is the basis of companies that need to rapidly adapt to market requirements and conditions.
Typically, designing or developing a revised formulation is triggered by new product specifications to meet. Along with product specification comes constraints on the materials to use, processing constraints, etc.
To avoid trial-and-error methodology and stick with a data-driven approach, MaterialsZone has developed an efficient workflow (figure 1) for new formulation development that will reduce your R&D efforts and significantly reduce the number of experiments and iterations needed to reach the desired formulation.
